ROCK AROUND THE SHELL

You don’t always need a GUI-based tool to play MP3 and Ogg Vorbis tracks. In this month’s column, we look at tools for rocking from the shell.

If you have a fast machine, players such as amaroK or JuK are not only a treat for your ears – they also give you lots of eye candy. But even if you have an older machine, you don’t need to do without music while you work. Thanks to small footprint command line players for MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, a text-based console is all you need.

The other advantage these programs offer is that they integrate nicely with other shell commands. You can search your disk for sound files and automatically feed the results into a playlist. And if you are converting to WAV format – to put a collection of tracks on an audio CD, for example – the command line is definitely preferable to any GUI.

YouTube offers more than just funny kitten movies; you will also find more than 60 million music videos. With a native YouTube client for Linux, you can use this online jukebox as conveniently as your local music collection.